Stuttering in games

[B1GG5]

I just RMA'd my second gtx 280 and got a gtx 470 back from EVGA. My first 280 suffered from artifacting and its replacement suffered from the "pink screen of death". Around when i started getting the PSOD on my second 280, i started noticing that some of my games would have weird stuttering problems. I thought this was just another problem caused by the card going bad ,but it seems that the stuttering is still persistent with my 470. Crysis has the most stuttering out of all my games, but STALKER and Penumbra: Black Plague also have this issue.

My framerate will be very good in every game. Crysis will usually have around 40 fps (very high, 4xAA, 720p). The problem seems to happen whenever I move or look around in the game. I can't even sprint in a straight line without having several split-second hitches in the framerate.

I don't remember having this issue until recently. Updating my drivers didn't seem to do anything. I tried bringing my CPU back down to stock speeds but that didn't help either. I'm still not sure what is causing the problem. Any help is greatly appreciated!


i7 920 @ 3.0ghz
GTX 470 EVGA
Corsair 4gb DDR3 RAM @ 570mhz 9-9-9-24
EVGA x58 SLI LE
Seagate 500gb HD
Corsair TX750w PSU

 

[Herr_Koos]

Any programs running in the background? Does the hard disk appear to be active?

 

[B1GG5]

I've tried closing out of all programs before I run anything. I even used game booster to turn off any background processes. No luck. I'm going to try monitoring my hard drive while running some stuff tonight and see if anything is acting up.

 

[swifty_morgan]

Ram not set right. Or not volted right. Bad mother board slot ( PCI-E ). Power supply. Did you turn off AA and physx ? That game booster thing. I watched what it did when I turned it on. System took a hit believe it or not. Not on my machine any more.

 

[mi1ez]

Is it screen tearing? a card that powerful outputting to 720p will be delivering a shed load of frames!

try enabling Vsync and see what that does.

 

[B1GG5]

Thanks for the replies.
I run pretty much all of my games with vsync. The stuttering still occurs whether it is on or off.

My hard drive doesn't seem to be active whenever I'm ingame. My hard drive is getting more on the full side (about 180gb left out of 500gb). Could this have anything to do with it?

I don't believe my power supply is the issue. What are some ways I could make sure it isn't causing the problem?

The RAM being the problem sounds the most likely to me. Could I have the clocks/voltages set wrong?

 

[psychophat]

Hard drive the issue no, unless if it's really fragmented.

Vsync causes a whole truck load of issues with a lot of games depending on the game if is D3D or OpenGL but you can play around with triple-buffering and your monitor's Hz frequency if your really into Vsync.

TIP: Remember Vsync is the synchronization of your video card and your monitor if both can't handle each others output, yeah you've guessed it problems from all sorts.

Hmmn . . . do you turn off your AV when your playing games, real-time protection is basically another hassle to gamers and stuttering is one of its perks among lag and the others.

 

[B1GG5]

I turned off my antivirus and started up Crysis. No luck

 

[55Range]

Were your card drivers removed , registry cleaned, before a fresh install ?

 

[B1GG5]

Hmm I used driver sweeper to clean out my drivers and reinstalled them fresh. Crysis actually does seem a bit smoother, like it is actually playable now. The stuttering is still apparent however so I'm not sure if cleaning the drivers is what actually helped or if I did something else without realizing

 

[55Range]

Monitor your fps using fraps, its free, post fps from in game situations..

 

[B1GG5]

Ok I tried what you said in a few games. In crysis, the fps stays around 45 (60 in the not as graphically intense levels, 35 during lots of action). Whenever there is a split-second stutter, the fps counter drops anywhere from 5 to 15 fps then rapidly bumps back up to normal. So I might be running smooth at 60 fps, then there is a stutter and the fps is displayed as 45 for a second, then the counter jumps back to 60. The fps drop also depends on the length of the pause if that makes sense.
The same thing happened in Penumbra. I did notice that the short stuttering does occur in the same places everytime I play the same savegame (ex. when i turn around this corner, when i see this enemy etc.)

 

[55Range]

Yeah stutter is a direct relationship to fps, if fps drops, it stutters..
Well stuttering happens in many games..
Check in many games as you can,if it happens -
Some games, which are more power hungry will stutter more..

 

[swifty_morgan]

You have the hardware that should not let this happen. Something can't be right. Did you check your motherboard drivers ? What's your ram supposed to be running at ? ( sticker on side of ram ) Try enabling more virtual ram ( HD ).

 

[B1GG5]

Well get this. I just ran Crysis in 32 bit mode instead of 64 bit and guess what? Smooth as butter. This is only a fix for crysis though. The rest of the games I was having problems with still have problems.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but 64bit uses more RAM than 32bit correct? If this is the case then it seems that the RAM may very well be my issue.


I'll check all my mobo drivers as well since that may also be the prob.

 

[randomhero1090]

1) What's your HD rpm and cache size?
2) Did you do memtest on your RAM?
3) Last time you defrag'd?
4) Last time you did a real deep look into spam/virus/malware on your PC? Using something like HijackThis or a rootkit detector....

 

[B1GG5]

My HD has an rpm of 7200 with a 16mb cache. I have it set to defrag every week so fragmentation isn't the problem.

I ran memtest and it came up with no errors.

I tried some free online rootkit detectors but none came up with any results.

 

[randomhero1090]

Wow.... Not sure what else to check without actually being on your system. Your system should crush games. OC'ing the processor isn't the problem. I'd crank that back up.

Try backing off the settings on Crysis and see what happens. If the FPS goes up, thats good. But if you still get the massive drops, down to the same 5-15 level as before, then something is really messed up.

 

[B1GG5]

Ok. Well like I said, running Crysis in 32bit mode seems to fix all the stuttering issues for it. I tried lowering the settings for the other games I was having problems with. They all still stuttered just as they did with the settings maxed out.
Oh and the framerate doesn't drop to around 15, fraps just measures each stutter as a drop of about 5 - 15fps. My framerate never gets close to 15.

What else can I check? I'm about to loosen my RAM timings and see if that helps any.

 

[randomhero1090]

OH, got it. Reread your post. Without going into an entire novel about frame rates, what the human eye can "see," blur, etc etc, etc... 60hz or 60 fps is the magic ticket.

Basically its like this. Most movies are shot at 18fps, but because of "blur" the movie appears to be "fluid." Most video games don't have blur. So you need higher frame rates to fill so the game doesn't appear to shutter. Some games have motion bluring, so you can have a lower frame rate but the game still appears fluid (GTA games is a great example).

Once you drop below 60, you are going to see some shutter. 5-15 fps drops aren't a big deal at all. Here's the problem. If 60 fps is your max, and you drop 15fps, even for a second, the game will appear to shutter. If 100 fps is your max, and you drop 15 fps, its really not a big deal. Probably won't notice a thing.

vsync is going to cap your fps to sync up with your monitor as said above, so you are most likely capped at 60 fps. I'd turn vsync OFF and play a game where you get a lot of FPS, see if it happens.

Dropping Crysis to 32bit allowed your PC to keep the game up at 60 fps. I bet if you went back and checked fraps, your MIN FPS wasn't below say 50.

If you want to see some serious FPS.... turn off vsync, drop some of the graphics detail down, AA down, AF down, and of course turn the resolution down. You should be over 100 fps with your system even on Crysis.

If you have CS:S, even with the settings somewhat HIGH but vsync OFF, you should be well over 100 fps all the time.

 

[randomhero1090]

Oh yeah, and again, crank the CPU back up. Its obvious that OC'ing the CPU isn't the problem.

 

[B1GG5]

Ok, I just re-OC'd my CPU.

I'm not sure if I was completely clear on the issue I'm having. The stuttering or hitching (or whatever you want to call it) is a split-second pause in the game seemingly at random. It is not a consistent shuttering.

I tried out Stalker with no vsync. In some spots I would have 100+ fps easily. Even then the stuttering issue was still noticable, with fraps showing a short 15 fps drop.


Thanks for all the help so far btw. This problem is turning out to be just a bit more difficult to fix than i thought lol.

 

[randomhero1090]

Is it a pause where the frame displayed hangs up OR is it like the game skips a frame?

 

[B1GG5]

Its like the frame hangs up for a fraction of a second and then the game catches back up to where it should be.

 

[randomhero1090]

Boy thats really weird. I can understand if it appears to "skip" frames or run a little slower because the FPS drops (looks choppy). But were the frame actually seems to pause....

I honestly don't know what else to say at this point.